


Ryan The FBI Guy

by gr0ss_cl0wn



Category: AH - Fandom, Achievement Hunter, FBI - Fandom, Fake AH crew - Fandom, Ryan Haywood - Fandom, fake achievement hunter crew
Genre: Dystopian, Emotional Turmoil, FBI, fun fact- cold is bad and warm is good, police work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:06:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18021905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr0ss_cl0wn/pseuds/gr0ss_cl0wn
Summary: Months after leaving the Fakes and joining the FBI, Ryan’s mind starts slipping on the ice that comes with government work. The only way to stabilise his temperature is to go back to the ways his therapy forced out, and the Kingpin isn’t taking his bullshit.





	1. Chilly Beginnings

01:18am, Thursday morning. The coffee machine is broke and Jones is stuck in traffic, so either I pop a few more caffeine pills or try not to fall asleep.  
7 people killed, 15 injured, 20k stolen in one heist. The Fake AH Crew.  
I went down the chilly corridor with ease, passing the fake plant as it’s leaves brush against my unusually empty gun holster.  
We had so much more evidence this time, we have CCTV footage from 8 different outposts and they all caught their faces and where the vehicle started driving off; but were still at a dead end.  
Maybe it’s just the force that’s shitty.  
I opened the door to my office, the open window I’d forgotten to close blasting the icy air directly into my face, but I didn’t care.  
I sat down in my equally as cold desk chair and opened the drawer. All of the evidence I’d collected for myself, all of the evidence that has been marked ‘lost’, all of the evidence that could get me fired.  
My name is Ryan Haywood, former FAHC member turned FBI guy who’s now on their case. The reason I got the job is a mystery, maybe it’s because they thought I’d know everything about the crew, maybe it’s because they were too scared to turn me down. Maybe it’s because they wanted to know why I left in the first place.  
Oh well. 

My tired eyes, my poor eyes. I took out a small notebook, all the pages dented with my violent penmanship, and started writing.  
‘Heist 57- Downtown Bank (6th time!!!!) 20k, 22 civilians hit, vehicle drove west and parked up in a Denny’s, the 5 went around the Denny’s and never came back out.’  
We’d had a team of 8 full armoured men check that whole Denny’s, but they’d just vanished. Its like they just kept walking backwards, using the building as cover until they were out of frame of the camera; it’s fucking stupid, I know!  
A swift knock at my door thrust my hand onto the book, instinctively throwing it to the floor as the silver handle began to turn.  
“Large espresso with extra espresso?”  
Jones was nervous but he still laughed, I could tell. That’s what I like about Jones, he was always genuine. There was no facade. I smiled sweetly.  
He placed the two cups on my desk and walked out with a peace sign, and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding.  
Fuck it. I was going to check this out myself. I knew the crew back and front and there’s no way they wouldn’t have done something to let me know what to do. 

Two warm coffees in hand, a backpack full of important information on wanted criminals, a tired FBI agent and a gut feeling that this is exactly what he’s wanted to do, even if it could get him killed.  
I strolled leisurely down the stairs, saying hi to the janitor on my way past.  
At this point, if the FAHC did kill me, I’d be expecting it more than I’d expect myself to return to that godforsaken job if not with a bullet in my head and Jones screaming into a forensics face “IT WAS THE FAKES!”  
I pushed the door open with my shoulder, the dull throbbing of a professionally stitched bullet wound was boring, I secretly loved waking up in the middle of the night because the wound had burst open because the only thing we had to sew it up with was some thread from a ripped shirt and a syringe end.  
My car was freezing. I hadn’t been in it for at least 48 hours at this point and the last time I unlocked it was to take a quick nap.  
I moved some loose change from the cup holder and set one full coffee cup and one half drunk coffee cup inside. When did I take a sip again?  
The engine roared, and off I went.

I rolled down all four windows, the cool night air plastering against my face chilled me to the bone. The radio was silent, the headlights were off and I was mentally preparing for a gun to the head the second I turned the wall.  
I slowly parked in the centre of the deserted Denny’s. It looked like there was one teenager at the register who honestly looked like they were asleep standing up. Yikes.  
My shoe touched the gravel on the outside and the rush of adrenaline that came with ‘you could be buried under this tonight.’ was addicting.  
My finger traced the outer patterns on my empty gun holster, a reminder of how defenceless I was. Like a lamb in the middle of a hiding wolf pack.  
My steps swiftly quickened from raw excitement alone. I could easily be compared to a child running to a circus tent at this point. Soon enough, I was almost dead sprinting to the side of the building, ready to meet my maker; or the person who made my entire life what it was now.  
Heart pumping louder than the music at a rave, cold air freezing me alive, the loose promise of death slipping through every artery, flowing with the blood and leaving giggles in my chest.  
I grabbed onto the brick, scuffing my bare hands trying to slow down and swing myself, I could almost shriek from pure adrenaline getting the better of me.  
But,  
Nothing.  
A dull green dumpster. A moth-light. Some dog shit.  
“No.”  
Stepping into the shadows, I checked for anything.  
“This isn’t it.”  
There was nothing except a dick scrawled onto the side of the dumpster.  
“They didn’t leave me anything.”  
A bullet. An empty mag. Hell, the fucking rubber duck logo would’ve been adequate!  
“Wait.”  
The dick.  
I must’ve looked crazy, perched over in the alley of a Denny’s at 2am. 

This was no ordinary dick.  
I knew the way Geoff drew dicks, the amount of times I’ve woken up with them drunkenly scribbled over my face is uncountable.  
This was an arrow.  
I looked down at the gravel, and reverted to lizard brain; I dug.  
And of course, the Denny’s gravel delivered; a bullet casing with a bit of napkin folded inside with three words that honestly could’ve brought me to climax right there.  
“Don’t turn around”  
And as soon as that last word slipped off my tongue, my shirt was yanked upwards and a syringe was slipped right under my shoulder blade, planting itself like a bug before my legs weakened almost instantly and my vision circled out like an old timer cartoon ending. 

For the first time in a long time, I felt warm.


	2. Kingpins Playroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s what you get when you expect too much of the Fakes.

“Welcome home, sunshine.”  
What an ironic name, taking into account my hands are freezing from blood loss and when I close my eyes tight enough I could successfully convince myself I didn’t have legs, but icicles.   
“Geoff? Is t-“  
Suddenly, an equally cold pair of hands closed off my throats airways. I, shamefully, squeaked like a pig while feeling my adam’s apple gulp like a fat pig eating slop.  
“I am not Geoff, I am the fucking Kingpin of Los Santos and you will address me as such.”  
Confusion slipped in and fogged my head, probably from the lack of air, actually.   
“But you wanted me to come..?”  
“Wanted you? You left us, so we let go of you. If anything, we wanted a loose string to tug at the LSPD puppets”  
Suddenly, it wasn’t the physical cold that I could feel. My blood dropped to a steady milkshake temperature; my stomach stopped meddling with the coffee I’d drunk and made an iced latte; my bones however, itched. It was the same feeling I’d lost when I was forced into reconstructive therapy to join the FBI. It was the feeling I got when I didn’t manage to complete a heist, where my bones charred in the fires of hell and my whole life was dedicated to scratch off the black splinters of this useless fucking skeleton.   
“You.. what?”  
Geoff had my hands tightly wound behind my back and sat me on a glacial concrete floor and all because I was now worth nothing to my former family but a..  
I was a pig.   
That’s when it hit me.   
Geoff didn’t give a shit if he had to kill me. I have seen him shoot Matt Hullum, the guy who took over as The Cockbites leader, all because Matt was speaking to a friend who worked in the LSPD a little too quietly. 

This could be the night I died. I could be killed without a second thought from anyone I actually cared about. No funeral coming anytime soon, my mother already thought I was dead 2 months after I’d been asked by Geoff for an ‘interview.’  
“‘I.. what?’ Ryan, you knew you were always cut out for the farmhouse,”  
A pig joke.  
“And I’ve gotta say man, there’s a few points in here not even I knew of!”  
He pulled out my small notebook, yes, the one I had all the evidence no one else caught. He smugly opened it up like the morning paper, flipping the the middle of the book and turning a few pages back.   
“June the 27th. 2 C-4’s planted near an exit, set to go off the next month. Had been filled with C-4 on a heist I participated in previously. Disarmed.”  
I went to stand up before getting kicked in the ribs, spluttering onto the dusty floor.  
“Y’know, I wondered why they didn’t go off. You fucking laughed at the news anchor who narrated the story, why did you fuck us up this time?”  
He stomped on my writhing body, and I noticed something. I started to forced a cackle.   
“Shut the fuck up, you pig.”  
With each swear, he stomped on me. I laughed harder, testing something. I even started wriggling around on the floor like an overjoyed slug.   
“You’re fucking insane! You could’ve been a fucking lawyer and we’d have been fine!”  
He laid his foot just behind me after giving his heel to my left kidney, and it was beginning to warm up in the barren wasteland that was this warehouse.  
I scooped my bound arms around his ankle and rolled, and with came a nasty crunch.   
Welp, bye bye therapy.   
“Ah, you asshole!”   
I rolled away like a loose pencil on a lopsided desk and got to my knees, studying him from afar and underneath suit pants.   
His right shin has been fractured, it’s likely the thin layer of blood under the skin was already seeping right to the injury. That wasn’t going to heal nicely, and it was a lifetime of illegally bought morphine for supper.   
It’s wonderful what information the FBI could give you versus what they couldn’t. 

“Uh, see ya!”  
I got back onto my chest and performed my personal favourite synchronised ‘moving-while-bound-at-the-limbs’ move, the Puppy VS Downwards Staircase. Almost as violently as I rolled onto my ex-bosses leg, I rolled down the room towards a set of double doors that looked like they led to a corridor.   
Until, I remembered why the Fakes was the place I belonged.   
Despite the heavily injured shin, any new wounds he’d acquired and having to deal with The Vagabonds new personality ‘James Ryan Haywood’, Geoff had gotten up.   
“No..”  
He strode over, his iconic suit jacket lost back in the Center of the room and the white undershirt covered in dusty brown dirt   
“No!”  
He grabbed my leg with the strength of The Kingpin, strength that could hold the weight of a thousand sins and still have extra to hold an entire criminal empire, and dragged me.   
It got colder, dust flew into my eyes and my fingernails peeled off like stick-ons from how determined I was to dig them into the rock.   
“Geoff, pl-“  
He jerked his wrist in a way he’d taught me so many times, breaking my ankle almost instantly.  
My scream was choked and deep, and it was the first time I’d ever screamed. Life of crime from 19 to 28, laughing until 14 bullets knocked me unconscious. Life of law from 29 to 8 months after 29 and I stared at the bullet wound like a cat to a bug that a gas station mugger had put just above my lung.   
“It’s Kingpin.”

The rest of the night was spent Geoff senselessly beating me with a gas pipe he’d ripped out of the wall. No, that doesn’t do it justice..  
Geoff stomped on my other ankle until it gave way and crunched like a Dorito. Then, he made sure each one of my fingers were dislocated before walking off to the side of the room to kick a steel pipe out of its place. At this point, Jack and Michael had come over to retrieve Geoff, but ended up watching. Thirdly, Geoff came back and bruised the backs of my calves a wonderful shade of purple and red and transform my calcium filled bones into ash.   
Then he stabbed me, unsuccessfully, with the pipe. It cut rusty circles into the flesh of my back and pulled out a number of my ribs. He had Jack flip me over, something about ‘not wanting to get dog shit on his hands’ and used my fleshy stomach like a housewife from the 20th century used a carpet beater to get dust out of the sheets. (See: hanging a bedsheet over a washing line and smacking the ever-loving shit out of it)   
By the end, they left; I was left in an icebox warehouse with a bloody gas-pipe and too broken bones in my torso alone to count on both hands.   
And despite it being from my blood leaking out of my veins inside me..  
I felt warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was so graphic (?)


	3. Witness Protection Program

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting placed in the program that your British friend excelled in getting forcing people out of (usually by their unfortunate demise..) was quite an experience.

Cold. Cold enough that I felt the cold air slip down my dry throat. Cold and dry. Cold and dry like leftover poppadoms from that kebab place I’d order from when nights got longer and the windows seemed to unlock themselves as the Fahrenheit dropped down to mid forties. But this wasn’t a bleak apartment that I barely had the right to call ‘home’, this was a hospital.   
My eyes opened and I blinked rapidly, not moving my head.   
My left leg was in a thick grey cast while my right was wrapped up nice and tight. My hands were bandaged, medical tape was pulling at my arm hair. My torso ached, like, it ached bad. A thin wrap which felt like a cast restricted my breathing, like a big splint that a kid would use as an excuse to miss 2 weeks of schoolwork. I had tubes coming out of everywhere, my nose, arms, wrists, right hip, I even had one attached to my bladder (you can guess what I mean by that)

The room, however, was much worse. There was a Loose Women magazine on my empty bedside table, a fake plant on the (dirty) window sill, at least 3 empty Costa Coffee cups scattered in the room and 3 other beds.   
The first bed, to my left, had the curtain shut. From what I could hear, someone was retching into a bin and a panicking male was desperately pressing the ‘call nurse’ button; the incessant beep was insufferable.  
The second bed, diagonal left to me, was open. An old woman who looked like she would rather be 6 feet under than in a hospital bed was asleep. She was basically entirely encased in an array of allium flowers; god help her if she was in here for hayfever..  
The third and final bed was closed, but it wasn’t an effective way of hiding what dwelled inside. Young children were being shunned by a woman; they were to ‘stop touchin’ the fuckin’ thingadings right fuckin’ now!’, voiced by presumably their mother in a thick southern accent.  
Once again, cold and dirty. Not fun. 

“Sir, would you like me to inform you of what happened?”  
A nurse in a sickeningly unfashionable pastel orange uniform pulled me out of my daze.   
“Uh.. sure.”  
“You were brought in by 3 males, they said you used to work with them?”  
For a moment, my heart monitor spiked. ‘Jack, Michael and Geoff..’  
“A man with the name Garrett Jones asked me to inform you that you’d been fired from your place of work, I hope this doesn’t upset you too much. He’s scheduled for an extended visiting hour for business reasons at four o’ clock.”  
My eyes wandered to above the dirty window; 10 minutes past 1 in the afternoon. Cloudy. Window still open. Cold. Dirty. Jobless.   
“Now, can I ask what you’d prefer for lunch?”

I’d read the Loose Women magazine cover to cover by the time the hanging clock struck 40 minutes to 4 o’ clock. The person next to me had stopped retching into their new-and-improved vomit bucket instead of the bin we shared.   
My cheap, probably microwaved lasagna and french fries with brownie and custard had already being digested and I’d been wheel-chaired to the little boys room once already.   
The clouds outside cleared up and I had two specific things on my mind.   
Number one- the reason Geoff had kidnapped me, being ‘wanting a loose end to pull at the LSPD puppets with’, wasn’t adding up. If he did want me for that, he would’ve kept me. Like a pet, or a hostage, or a hostage pet.   
Number two- there’s no possible way the FBI could’ve tracked me down unless the Fakes were getting shabbier, by which I mean only shooting out the Denny’s CCTV camera after they’d left me in the warehouse, which would’ve given the FBI enough time to come and rescue me.   
It didn’t make sense. 

Just as fast as he’d arrived, Seymour had left.   
He was the top man, director of criminal investigations in my specific branch. He’d popped in to tell me I was a danger to the whole force just by existing with them, so they were putting me into the witness protection program.   
I’d asked him if I could just. Not do that. He replied with a hearty chuckle from under his tobacco scented moustache, patted my casted leg a little too firm for friendliness and replied,  
“No.”  
This was basically rock bottom. The next 8 second passed like millennia as I studied every detail of his face. The way his left eyebrow became lighter with each hair, the way his nose pinched at the very end and clashed with his flared nostrils, the way his moustache curled just over the wave of his upper lip and the way his chin looked like an ass.  
Why did this, you might ask? Well, remember when I mentioned I went through reconstructive therapy to adapt to civilian life? It got completely forgotten the second I felt the cold of that warehouse floor seep through my jeans and cool the hot bruises that sat on my flesh.   
This was my way of telling my brain to add a name to the hit list. 

Days past. Weeks past. 2 weeks later I was being let out of hospital in my very own temporary wheelchair with one leg in a boot, the other in a splint and a back brace.   
I left my car at the Denny’s, which was probably at least 4 miles from here, so I wheeled my way home. Refusing help from 6 strangers in 2 hours gets annoying fast, especially when you live in an apartment with no elevators so you end up having to go into the street and look for a particularly nice and strong stranger to carry you and your very own temporary wheelchair up 4 flights of stairs. Not fun. Very annoying.   
I unlocked my door after saying goodbye to Pharrel, my knight in a green flannel and platform boots, and took a whiff of my stash.   
No, not recreational marijuana. The fresh air. The crisp, cold air.   
The windows were left open for almost 3 weeks, the magnolia carpet was watered down to a soft white but only under the windows. My fruit bowl was a-okay, except for the mushy grapes and one weird strawberry I never took out. 

I picked up a pile of letters that had started a wall in front of my door, pressing my thumb onto the crinkly plastic and feeling sharp icy temperatures spike into my hand. But a few envelopes deep, I noticed a sheet of paper. It looks like it had been ripped out of a journal, the date was April 17th. I looked down, and on the 12th line, scrawled in blue ink with circled i’s and an exclamation point was a note that made soft shivers scrape themselves up my back and leave tingles at the point of my neck. I jerked the note, a rip of paper and the warm stinging of a paper cut graced me back.   
“Every second you spend in your apartment or car, we get an extra second knowing what stitches they put in you and how to make it hurt when we rip them back out!”

Ironically, the only warmth I felt now was where a thin dripping of blood oozed out of my thumb, and how the inside of my mouth reeked of blood.


	4. Old Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan’s new apartment is broken in, so the next step is the welcoming party. Too bad only one guest left.

My toes were numb and blistered, yet I walked on them regardless. My jeans were basically plastered to me, yet they never warmed up. My sweater- well my sweater was fine; i wasn’t rolling around on the floor, just sitting on it occasionally. The wet squelching of my carpet sounded like what I imagined my guts would sound like when Geoff went wishy-washy in them once he caught me. The reason my carpet was so swampy was because the magnolia that it had been was now a sickly white, windows left open for 3 weeks and the amount of rain this city gets in a thunderstorm would do that, so I was watering it down with 8 buckets of tap water and some paint thinner.   
Back to the topic of Geoff like a child with a tub of warm beans, I knew he’d bugged my apartment.   
The note he’d left when I first returned, the small beeps that rang out at midnight, my landlord asking why I was making blocked number calls at 4am, I knew they’d been here more than once since I’d returned and was watching me.   
And this was what I, personally, believe triggered my eventual breakdown.   
Here how it went. 

First, it was just visibly throwing all the food in the apartment into the trash.   
“You think you can poison me? Eat ass, fuck face.”  
Litres of expensive wine, enough food to keep a homeless person going for a month, even that one weird strawberry that made me shiver when my finger poked the mushy lump.   
Next, it was getting naked. Or just generally jacking off in the living room. Practically begging for prostitutes and hookers to stay and fuck even after they saw no organic life but me in the desolate apartment. I wanted to make sure they had the worst time watching me. For them to suffer. It wasn’t as gross in my mind, trust me on this.   
Third, it was the noise. The TV had to go, the toaster went out the window, the kettle was no more, I’d attached a cut up garden hose to the bath so the water wouldn’t splash. This wasn’t to make the Fakes suffer, it was just getting to my head. Self care is buying rugs for the kitchen and bathroom so nothing makes noise when you drop them.   
Next, it was the food situations. I’d avoid eating at all and only ordered 2 bags of food once a month. It would get delivered to me just outside of the store so I could be sure it wasn’t poisoned. Who knows whether the FAHC planned on robbing the supermarket while i was inside? Not me. That’s why I waited outside. 

“Ryan, it’s Jones!”  
The buzzing of the front door bore into my brain at 21:32pm. This wasn’t some fancy building where I could choose whether to unlock the door, this was underpaid doorman, no elevators, 1 working vending machine and up you went.   
“No thanks. Not feeling visitors.”  
“C’mon Rye! I brought coffee!”  
The promise of the sweet brew was a dealbreaker. With my very limited amount of money provided by The Witness Protection Program, I could only really afford packaged food that could be noticed if tampered with. Coffee was just a twist of the cap and you could easily sprinkle anything in there. Like cholera. Or syphilis. Or something else that would be bad.   
I ever so silently attached the freezing metal chain to the wall, I’d realised that by asking the person why they came over they’d focus on something their answer and getting past the door rather than the small clinks of the lock.   
And by god, did I appreciate that skill right now. But Jones didn’t have an answer. 

The door bursted open 10 centimetres, presumably by a kick. I was thrown backwards out of fear and instinctively threw myself against the wall behind the slightly opened door.   
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?!”  
My voice was pure anger, I even scared myself a little, but the rage I felt was directed at the wrong person. My eyes were in the perfect spot to see through the slit between the door and the wall, and what I saw haunted historical my civilian nightmares.  
Jones had fat tears rolling down his cheeks and a gun rested on his little roll of chubby that sat on his collar. A gun with a name that I’d learned to un-memorise was covering the majority of the attackers face, but I’d notice that sleek bald head and short body anywhere.   
“Please Ryan, please let me in.”  
Jones voice broke me, his eyes found mine and he shredded my soul like a dog on a child’s favourite plush toy. 

The next few seconds were horrible. I can’t, and don’t think I ever will, describe the way my body felt. My fingertips ran cold. One paralysed foot stepped away from the wall. I took an umbrella from the umbrella-holding-vase and backed up against the wall, pointing it towards the door. The frosty metal chain came loose and a bullet came shooting through the wood, blood and splinters tailing behind. A thud that therapy put a cork in for me sounded and my body reacted the way bodies usually react when they realise that the one person that had taken care of them for the past year and a half was dead, it shut down. My spine enveloped itself in ice. My eyes glossed over with water straight from the arctic oceans. Glaciers sat themselves in my stomach and dragged me down to my knees. Frostbite trickled around in my lungs and I spat out misty white breaths like it was Decembers magnum opus. 

“Let me in.”  
Jeremy’s voice soothed me to an extent, he had god-beautiful pipes and he always calmed me down. It thawed out the calcified muscles in my jaw and I managed to get out one word, swearing a speck of ice drawled down my lip with it.  
“Why.”  
The chain lock was blown off, shotgun. The door handle twisted and he entered, the frigid breeze and stench of paint thinner visibly putting him off for a split second. He turned his head down to the right where my eyes were begging him to leave and never come back, but he blinked, ventured his fingers into my greasy, unclean hair and dragged me out of the room.   
I kicked my legs across the hardwood hallway, trying to keep him from separating my skin from scalp. He brought me to the stairs and threw me to best of his might and I tipped, letting myself sink to the first landing. 

The only ‘warmth’ I felt was the 30°c radiator singe my sweater and the bust lip I was sporting, despite those I was glacial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stupid Ryan, obviously only the Fakes could find out where the WPP put you!!!! You said it yourself! Stupid boy! Graahhh!!!


	5. The After-Effects of Paint Thinner and Dubstep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reason one of many why you don’t live in a watered down paint thinner swamp.

“Why are- ngh you doing thi-“  
Jeremy descended down the wooden stairway with a small look of gloom in his cheeks.   
“Hey, dont blame me. Boss said to rough you up or we would end up likewise.”  
“No, I want a fucking answer.”   
I pawed out one of my front bottom teeth and spat it at him as he heaved me down the next two flights. Only 5 more to go!  
“You’re getting evicted, didn’t you see the sign? G.Bs cameras saw the sign on your door and,”   
He dragged my legs down the next flight,  
“Boss made this huge speech about how the pigs will just think you’re at a friends house. Too bad I killed the coffee guy, that’s going to fuck over the plan.”  
The mention of death being so freely used felt like bobbing icebergs in my belly, crystallised and frozen stones of vomit cold enough to rid the hot-cold feeling you get when you’re sick.   
The rest of the way down was silent, apart from the thuds of my elbows gathering splinters and my newly exposed spine, due under-eating, taking most of the hits. 

“One left, you’ve gotta walk to the car in case anyone’s out there.”  
Jeremy’s large arms lifted me up. I’d dropped almost 30 pounds, so it was fast and unexpected. He helped me down the 7 steps and let me use him for support through the lobby.   
It was fucking hell for multiple reasons.   
Firstly, the guy I could trust with my life was taking me to my execution and I had no will to say no. Secondly, the other guy I could trust with my life had just been shot outside my front door.   
Thirdly, the red hot smell of salty iron from the dead doorman underneath the front desk was mingling with the resting smell of paint thinner and I was getting fucked up.   
“Okay now just stay quiet and get in the car.”  
Now, I knew when to shut the fuck up, and this was not that time.   
“hEL.. HELP!!”  
The bustling street of lower-middle class Los Santos turned their attention to me, who was being dropped into the gutter. Jeremy’s face flashed red and the frosty breezes seemed to deflect off of me, because I felt warm and I could hear my pulse throbbing in my ear. In small drips, the months of therapy was dripping off of me and like an IV, the small whispers of ‘do it.’ and ‘swing first.’ were slowly but surely infecting my brain. 

3 different people helped Rimmy Tim drag me back onto the curb but out of the apartments at Jeremy’s word. His disguise was simple, anything that wasn’t orange or purple, and it worked like a fucking charm. My intoxicatingly warm mind was silently shrieking ‘no!’ but I was still being loaded into the passenger seat of a surely stolen vehicle. You’d think this experience alone would want to keep me from ever putting anyone through this again, but I was still getting over the years of crime that the FBIs therapy helped me through. It’s like playing with a broken toy that hasn’t had time to let the superglue dry, it’s going to fall right back apart and you’re not going to be able to put more superglue on it. So, welcome to my last few days of sobriety because soon enough I’ll be drunk on the raging flame that is gunfire and bloodspill.

The car ride was utter fucking shit and I’m convinced it’s my last few hours of sobriety if this is what the penthouse is like.   
Jeremy’s car was a Chevrolet Silverado with leather seats which stung into the bottoms of my thighs. I should mention for the last few days I’ve been wearing boxers and a tank, so I had good reason to be cold. The sickening music taste of J Dooley was upbeat dubstep, so after inhaling poisonous chemicals for the last couple weeks, that doesn’t do you so well. Before I can continue on my high-drunk drunk-high rant the car pulls over, and I didn’t even get to watch where I was being taken; though it couldn’t have done much when the dashboards textureless, grey surface was pulling rude faces at me. Oh, fuck. 

“C’mon, Rye.”  
The door beside me opened wide like the jaws of a beast. My heart rate skyrocketed, pulse fastened in for the drive of a lifetime and my limbs flailed, desperately trying to swim my body away from the doom that was the tongue of this mega-mouth trying to wrap around me.   
“I DONT WANT TO DIE!!”  
The tongue wasn’t wet, but it squeezed me so hard I might’ve popped. I slumped over a black leather tonsil and grabbed onto the uvula that, oddly, had a mirror on it.   
Never did it occur to me that the tongue was reaching me from outside of the mouth, nor did it occur to me that Jeremy was shouting at me to get out of the car throughout the experience, but hey. I was fucked up. Cut a guy some slack.   
Or yknow, uppercut a guy. Personally, the latter is slightly less appealing, but that’s what I got. Lights out. 

“Look at me like that again.”  
“Boss,”  
“I dare you.”  
“I didn’t-“  
“I’ll snap your fucking neck.”  
Jeremy’s gruff pipes were screwed shut as he exited the empty penthouse room like a teenager still too young to slam doors, but old enough to hate their parents. And I was sat there, head bobbing like a Star Wars Pop Funko I used to own, waiting for the parent to tell me off for- Wait, why was I here?  
“Good morning, sunshine.”  
That fucking nickname again. To be frank, I wasn’t feeling too cold; if anything I was losing all the cold water I stored up as it exited the huge taps attached to my knees. Fucking paint thinner. 

“James Ryan Haywood. Ryan James Haywood. I don’t remember your name yet don’t care enough to try forget.”  
“Geoff, don’t treat me like this. I’ve watched you interrogate people billions of times.”  
Maybe it was the lack of food, the injuries, the substances I’d ingested, or maybe it was real, but Geoff’s body contorted- like a snakes- and darted over to me, one foot digging into my knee, arm holding the chair on a lean, face so emotionless but full of life. One pupil was too disrespectful, so I chose to close my eyes; missing the smirk of the Devil pulling at his cheek muscles like Geoff was Beelzebub's Marionette.   
“That’s like saying that you watched the twin towers fall on the news so you know how it felt to be one of the poor bastards inside.”

His eyes bore into me, like a shredder in a farm. Jeremy had carried my body into the machinery and Geoff was the heavy metal, tearing me, chunks of limbs lost in the escalator of blood-stained metal, iron rust and bone splinters.   
Limbo. I was being punished in limbo.   
Until he backed off, then I knew that this was, in-fact, and entirely Hell.   
“Do you remember,”  
He poked his arm through the door and I saw the smudged hallways I longed for so deep.   
“How you always complained how you were cold?”  
He dragged onto the tile floor a box, no bigger than that of a fruit crate.   
“Well, I thought we’d raise some memories of that.”  
He pulled out of the box a dripping rag, I’d used it many times myself on other poor, unsuspecting crime lords. God, I was going to hate this. 

My chair landed with a clunk on the stone tile floor, my skull bumping along with a little crunch. My wrists suffocated and writhed under the thick wood as the heavy rag was dropped neatly over my head, shaking it off was a no-go as it was already wet.   
“Activity number 1- waterboarding!”  
Freezing cold water filled my nostrils, seeped into my scrunched eyes and washed past my lips. It got stuck in the crevices of my ears and the towel just kept it coming. Breathing was never not accompanied by flecks and specks of aqua cold enough to challenge the Minnesotan rain.   
I screamed, thrashed, but I almost didn’t notice. The water just kept coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, coming..  
“Bottle 1 of 3, 2 to go.”  
Why was I here? What had I done? Is this what the Fakes did to people? Is this what I did to people..?

They were going to pay for what they’d done to me. What did I do to deserve this other than leave, which saved lives of other crews? Fuck the Fakes.

And with that, Ryan’s icicle of pain sobriety had dripped its last drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry this was short. And took so long to be written. Oops! Next chapter will have lots of gore I hope, probably. Do you want Ryan to die or to just continually get picked up, beaten and dropped off like a masochistic hooker?


	6. A Small Taste of What’s To Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title explains it all, literally. Also, Matt Bragg runs.

There was nothing but pain.   
Pain, the burning in my muscles was accompanied by white hot flame.   
I thrashed on the floor as the sopping towel was kicked from my head, I barely grunted as the bones of my nose were moved with it.   
Pain, the laser staring of eyes, my former friend’s eyes, boring down into me; like I was a tantrum-ridden toddler that was making a scene.  
My wrist slipped free of the wiry rope and the first thing I did with my new found freedom was slam it directly into the dusty ground next to me, a wet thud and a red slap. 

“My shoe!”  
Sick red. Sweet red. Like blowing the ink out of a pen, it starts black; one tiny smudge and it’s vibrancy is revealed, only I was the voiding blot and this subjection to heat was my misfortunate smudge. My blood, the blood of a fucking god, spilled onto a shitheads shoe.   
I will assure that it stains his greedy hands.   
“You think,”  
No need for any more thrashing, my other hand slipped right out of its bonds with the sacrifice of a ligament.   
“You can contain,”  
The passion in grabbing your mentor by the throat, knowing you’ve outranked them, is and will continue to be overwhelmingly fulfilling.  
“Me?”  
Until it wasn’t. 

It was quick. A jerk of the knee.   
I felt my diaphragm spasm, if even possible.   
My ankles fought, my knees buckled. At my knees for a commonwealth?  
There was no fear, there was no defence.   
There was only attack.  
“Listen, piggy, I don’t know what’s up with you but you better keep your grubby fucking hooves off of me unless you want to end up scratchings.”  
”No. No.”  
“No?”  
My head spun to Jeremy, Rimmy Tim, whoever the fuck it was I was looking at them.   
“You killed Jones.”  
“You killed Jones?”  
My attention turned back to Geoff, and I reverted back to mother nature’s technique. Just going absolutely shit brains feral. 

My malnourished arms wrapped around his leg like the branches of a tree in that one Shrek film. My near-rotting teeth sunk in, through his suit pants. They tore like cheap tissue paper and skin, flesh, blood, muscle graced my tongue.   
You wouldn’t have been able to tell that the shriek was a males.   
The meat only filled my mouth slightly past my canines, but it was just the right amount to be able to have a steady enough grip on. His calloused fingertips dug their way into my mouth, scraping my gums. He tried to, what, pull my teeth out? Everyone knows you can’t open a mouth by pulling at the upper teeth.   
But, what you can do, is have your vastus lateralis torn into three, stringy bits. Blood stained the cheap suit, like ink to a page. The tissue in my mouth seared my tongue and I spat it, the noise it made will forever be ingrained, behind my teeth and with every bite I take.   
Geoff’s screams bore on, I mentally debated taking another bite before Jeremy rushed over to him and dragged him out of the room. 

“Fuck.”  
I could hear him, he was repeating the word ‘cunt’ just outside of the door while someone reassured him the he was going to be alright.   
I needed to get out.   
“Damn it!”  
I’d helped put up the walls for the interrogation floor (yes, we were rich, we had like 2 empty floors when I left.) and made sure no bastard could get out.   
Which also meant I knew that I’d get to my bone before I nail-scratched my way through the wall.   
My eyes peered around the room. Painted grey walls, laminate wood floor, a single metal fire door with 2 locks either side.

I got off of my knees awkwardly, like a stripper who had just been sucking dick on their knees for an hour but was also still sore from the anal ramming they got.  
Well, what other choose did I have other than to be polite?  
Three sharp knocks, three unnoticed pains.   
Silence from beyond the border.   
“..Ryan?”  
“Yes, hello, I’d like to come out now.”  
Silence. Again. I could hear- no, feel the blood rushing through my ears.   
But then, alike a birthday boy about to walk into a surprise party, I heard shuffling.   
The door clicked, it clicked again, I went for the door handle but the door swiftly swung open.   
Fiona- covered in presumably Geoff’s blood- noticeably flinched when she saw my hand reaching out. That.. made me sad. The small throbbing blazes I felt crawl in my injured wrists cooled.  
“Okay. Well.”  
I stepped around her, over a pool of scarlet, dodging a first aid kit, and in the direction of the hallway. Corridor. Elevator. Horizontal tunnel to the vertical tunnel.   
“See ya.”  
“Yeah, you too.”

In the elevator, my mind wandered.   
My wrists hurt, bad. The adrenaline had worn off and I wanted to go home, I wanted my mama. Too bad I faked my death to become a merc at the age of 19, otherwise I would’ve stormed right back into her house and comforted her, even at the risk of her thinking I was a spectre.   
And I wanted to snoop. So fucking bad? I was, in this moment, a greedy little gnome.   
And I’d only just realised throughout all of this I hadn’t wiped off my face. I’m still wetter than a sweater in July.   
I took the time to dry my face, but only then did the raging inferno that was a torn ligament char my muscles.   
“I need a doctor.” Like, now.   
The elevator dinged on point and I stepped into the Fakes lobby. It was a public space for people to wait, but it didn’t come free. Usually you were questioned by police after their most recent heist. Other times their door-people would converse with you until you gave them your card details and ended up with 69 cents left in your bank.   
“Hey- What the fuck!!”

I spun, I was met with Matt. Hurtling towards me with a handheld taser.   
I didn’t ever think in my life I’d be chased by Matt Bragg, but here I was. I turned on my heel and ran for the glass door, using my speed against myself in an attempt to use myself left. This resulted in pinching the already shredded ligament, aka, mucho paino.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you weren’t too grossed out by the cannibalism!! Reminder of the chapter title,,


	7. Chips ‘n’ Guac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who woulda thought you’d keep the number the worlds best dad who’s not your dad? Apparently not the Fakes.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.  
Down the concrete streets. Grey jungle. Dodging tourists like I dodged emotions. Shifting through the crowd on an expert level, chest squeezing in to slip through a couple while Matt was significantly less gifted in crowd control.   
I pushed for right, only just making the zebra crossing before the light turned green and continued burning my sprint for another tourist ridden street.   
I weaved through Los Santos centre like an ant in a cornfield, although ants could take that.   
I, On the other hand, felt like a star. Burning.   
I gave up one second and dipped into a restaurant the next. It had a tented outside area and an inside, the upstairs looked like a lounge from what I could see from outside.   
“Excuse me..”

I tangoed my way through the garden tables and leaned against a window, unknowingly blocking a young foreign families view of the movie theatre opposite.   
Matt came sprinting down the street, also blocking the view of the movie theatre as he was on the other side of the road.   
He looked panicked, not angry, afraid. Like someone was coming to get him.   
But don’t be alarmed, that’s how you make sure you don’t get bothered. People’ll want to know who you’re chasing, why you’re chasing someone, what’s got you in such a hurry, why you bumped into them; if you just wear the expression of ‘someone’s coming to bite a chunk out of my leg’ they’ll try their best not to get involved, not to help.   
It’s a sick world, but atleast I knew my way around.

My shoulder blades pushed me off the window and I slipped inside the restaurant. It was a Mexican restaurant with excellent yellow/orange pottery gracing every glance you took. The air smelt heavily of spices and beef, and you could almost taste the corn chips and guacamole.  
“Hello sir, table for one?”  
“Please.”  
Despite the red and purple bruise that was on display across my nose, no one spared me any looks or remarks. God bless America, amirite?  
I was led to a sleek circular table with a ceramic orange triangle statue centrepiece. I swiftly ordered a starter of ‘chips ‘n’ guac’ and waited.   
The atmosphere felt acceptable for my current wellbeing. My torso ached, my legs throbbed, my wrists both equally felt searing pain and it was hard to breathe without an audible suck of blood. 

I leant back, leaning on the back legs of my chair, and surveyed the restaurant.   
4 booths insight, 6 tables for four, 2 for two, 2 baby-chairs in use. Seemed like a good environment to maybe bring the family to, maybe a low-key birthday meal. Definitely no ones number one favourite restaurant, but obviously one of the places you’ve visited more than once. A place you can say “I usually only order X, but at this restaurant I can never decide between a Y or a big plate of Z.”  
Good thing I was a good decider, as I took the warm plate of corn chips and guac from the male server and grabbed my phone that was securely in my jean pocket.   
Honestly, I’d expected Geoff or Jeremy to have stolen it.   
I’d take a bite of the greasy delicacy before me, but that was too much of a risk, so instead I dialled up the number of the guy who buys his own ‘worlds best dad’ mugs, Seymour. 

“You’re supposed to be in the goddamn WPP.”  
“And you’re supposed to be linking the chain of bowling alley robberies that FakeHaus committed, but you haven’t.”  
“That’s my job, the program is literally protecting you from getting killed. That includes not being fucking telling your old friends where you live.”  
I swallowed down my pride and pulled off my armour like a soldier in an angsty romance film.   
“Jones- Garret was my fucking saviour. Do you know how many times that man brought me food when no one else would? How many times he sat with me, feeding me store brand painkillers when I was turned away from the hospital for looking like a homeless man wanting drugs? Now he’s fucking-“  
Damnit. Taking of your armour either gets you a heart to heart with the opposing side or easy access for surrounding arrows. I got the latter. 

“Ryan, I shouldn’t even be here. But I came because I’m your fucking friend before I’m your former fucking employer.”  
Lies. The way he plays his aggression like an instrument, the worked twitch of his cheek, is sickening. He’s not my friend. He’s never been my friend.   
“Now you listen here,”  
He takes a bit of the now-cold starter and I can’t rip my eyes away from his, hoping that they’ll contract and the poisonous guacamole will kill him, spread across the table like a choked out scream.   
“I’m going to walk out of here like this has been a failed first date and you’re going to pay for the meal under your name, Leland Reeves. Then you’re going to get a fucking part time job, earn some of your own cash and buy a fat, rainbow dildo and go fuck yourself.”

My eyes glanced to my phonecase, and I remembered my new ID from the Witness Protection Program was buried there.   
“This isn’t going to work out, Ley.”  
He was actually doing this; the fake sadness in his voice twinged with ‘stereotypical gay’, the way he softly caressed my shoulder, masking the way his fingertips locked on.   
What a fucking weirdo.   
“I’ll get a cab home, don’t forget what you’ve gotta do.”  
What, so he actually expected me to get a job? Buy a dildo? Fuck myself? We locked eyes and you truly couldn’t mistake the look of ‘I’m serious’ on his face.   
As he turned and walked in the direction of the door, all I could think of was how I had lost feeling in my fingers.   
And they felt cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 chapters in 1 day?! That’s right, I'm spoiling you.


	8. Could’ve Asked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All he wanted was to go get better; well not really, he just wanted a place to sleep.

I hate cabs.   
Like, it’s not even an exaggeration. I was deemed too unstable to drive when I was first admitted to the hospital, after my psych exam, and they took my licence.   
I hated how involved cabbies were.   
I wanted to get in, say where I was going, how badly I needed to get there and then play on my phone until I paid and left.  
Now it’s all ‘welcome! you don’t need to sit in the back! come upfront! oh, fine, here’s mints and crisps and gluten free candies! there’s tissues and condoms and a free T-shirt for all who sing a perfect rendition of We Are The Champions before we get to a traffic light!’  
The hospital came into view and I sighed in relief.   
Thank fuck.   
“Here’s the fee, it should be enough for a tip as well.”  
“Well, see ya later!”  
“No you won’t.”  
I almost threw the change into the guys hand and almost felt guilty for his skilfully concealed sadness. Almost wanted to say ‘hey man, I’m sorry, here’s more tips, let’s play Smash Bros sometime.’ because he looked like the kinda guy for Smash.

I got out with heavy footing and slammed the door with a heavy heart. I didn’t want to be here, but hey. It would be better than going to my apartment, which I got evicted from, despite being in the Witness Protection.   
Wait. How did I get evicted if I’m in the program?  
The question swum circles in my mind as I reached the doors of the hospital.   
“Welcome to LS Healthcare, please sign in and wait for your number to be called.”  
I took the glossy pen from the woman and wrote down Leland Reeves, penmanship under her gaze. She looked up at me, spoke ‘Aren’t yo-‘ before my shoulder was grabbed and tugged.   
“What the-“  
A heavy punch knocked me almost out cold.  
My eyes watered, my nose bled, the screaming of the receptionist pierced my ears like falling icicles and I was confused. I didn’t notice this person. The FRs wouldn't have gotten a new guy already, I used to work for them. But then, it dawned on me.   
This fuck wasn’t one of the Fanged Roosters contracts.   
This fuck was hired. 

My eyes decided that right now, time should slow down. My eyelashes barely departed their opposers before another punch bled into my face, almost feeling like how thick ink would travel through the creases in your skin.   
Security guards tried to pull the man off of me before the third punch was laid into me, but they were presented with what was inside a small leather badge wallet and backed off.   
Just shows how lousy the police force of LS is.   
The mystery attackers arm slinked around my torso and held onto my shoulder, and I could feel they were muscled. Aka, I shouldn’t be fighting them.  
Their knee came up, almost gently, and pushed me away.   
Maybe it was because I’d been near isolated for the past few months, maybe it was because my carer slash bestie had recently been shot through my door, maybe it was plain touch starvation. But this mystery attackers attack felt a lot like a hug.   
Y’know. Until I realised they were making room for their handheld to tase me right between the pectorals.  
“Gahh!”

My shriek made many infected children and their parents cry out also, like any man would when he had electricity being shot straight to the heart.   
The attacker leaned over me to the direction of the stunned party of security guards.   
“FBI associate Quentin Nickels, forget you ever saw Leland and me or there will be further trouble for your establishment.”  
The pain let up and I slumped. Quentin's grip kept me up, and I wasn’t surprised; he carried me all the way to a really big black car you’d see a vigilante get chased by in a shitty movie, I didn’t have enough brain cells at that moment to call up car knowledge.   
“Where are you taking me..”  
I was dropped, stomach first onto the backseat. Out of the chair pocket he pulled a pair of handcuffs, who knew I was about to get BDSMed by a merc!  
“WPP safe-house for ex-crims. Acts more like a fucking recruitment centre, if you ask me.”

“WPP.. you said FBI!”  
“Yeah, to the guards. I’m not supposed to say, but the WPP deals with way too many criminals just trying to get FBI info and they think you’re one of them.”  
My head hurt. My chest hurt. My stomach felt knotty and my hip was digging into the seat belt plug and it hurt real bad but Quentin had already shut the door.  
“The fuckers couldn’t figure out why the Fakes kept tracking you down and their balls are too big to admit defeat so they decided to put you in the Softie Slammer, built like an apartment ruled like a prison.”  
I looked into the abyss that was the back of the seats. A duffel of weapons of all kinds was simply sitting there, so I decided not to move much.   
“Isn’t it a bit ballsy to leave your kidnappee unsupervised with a bag of guns?”  
He scoffed, looked back at me and sent chills up my spine.  
“Like you’re ever getting your hands on another weapon.”  
What hurt the most was that he was probably right. 

“Quentin, darling, what’s new?”  
“Darling?”  
I piped up form the back after counting how many crumbs was on the seat. We’d stopped in a sort of multi-story-carpark sort of building and were currently stopped at a security shack thing. A man with the most curly hair ever was speaking.   
“Him. Ryan Haywood, Leland Reeves. Whoever you wanna call him.”  
“Oh, man! That’s gonna be fun.”  
“You know.”  
As Quentin's card beeped under the scanner, we continued, deeper into the multi story car park. Silence accompanied us for the moment until we pulled into a space. The satisfying clip of the door undone itself as Quentin stepped out, around and opened my door.   
“This’ll be fun.”  
My foot was dragged, my handcuffs got caught, my head was scratched, until eventually I was in my knight in shining armours arms.

“So, he called you darling.”  
“So?”  
“I don’t have anything against gay people, I jus-“  
“I’m not gay?”  
Now, if anything could make ‘being carried from a police-level armoured vehicle to an FBI safehouse in the arms of a slightly-bigger-than-a-twink hired hitman’ this was it.   
“Oh, you’re jut cwtchy with your friends?”  
Quentin looked at me, looked away and replied,  
“I’m not a guy, I’m androgynous.”  
Ohhhhh, that explained a lot.   
“Oh my gosh, I’m getting carried by an androgynous person to my doom! Never thought prisons would be so progressive.”

As the doors to what I presumed to be the main building slid open like two airlock chamber doors, I was greeted by the one and only Ray Narvaez Jr.   
And for once in my life, I was warmed by a completely ordinary face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BET YOU DIDNT SEE THAT COMING AHA  
> also I’m welsh. A cwtch is a hug and being cwtchy is like. cuddly.  
> Also!! This is a paragraph longer than the rest of the chapters :> lucky you!


	9. Sticky (Living) Situations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He only gets 1 letter a month, but he got the memo.

Now, voice in my head. As to not confuse you too much, I’ll summarise. I have been threatened by the Fakes, had my identity removed from society, been kidnapped from a hospital and brought to a top secret FBI rehabilitation centre for ex-criminals who just can’t seem to stay out of crime.   
I was in the arms of Quentin, my most recent kidnapper, and in the eyes of Ray, my most earliest friend.   
“Ryan?”  
“Ray?”  
“You two know eachother?”  
Quentin looked down at me puzzled,  
“Yeah, we were-“  
“-in college together.”  
What? We didn’t go to college. Ray hadn’t even been inside a college. We met when he was hired into the Fakes as a sniper.   
But then, like a gop of snow sliding off of a car in late February, I noticed it. The corner of his eye twitched, his top lip stuck out just that much and his nose flattened a bit.   
He wanted me to lie.  
I noticed it after, what, 6 years?   
Guess we better start digging a grave for all that therapy. 

“Dumbass almost got me majoring in astrophysics, could you imagine?”  
“And you missed out on being a NASA receptionist for modelling!”  
The three of us walked, as I’d finally been let free of my limb-prison. I seemed to be the only one not knowing where we were going, as people passed and made snarky faces.  
“Hey, I had the ass for underwear not spacesuits.”  
“Sure, Rye. Sure. Anyways, I’ll see ya later!”  
He walked through a heavy metal fire door into a long, stretched corridor of keycard-locked doors. I assumed it was living quarters, because he’d already started taking his shoes off halfway down the hallway.   
I’d ask him about the signal if I saw him again. It was already clawing at my insides.  
Quentin grabbed me by the shoulder and led me back the way we came.   
“So, you’re going to get admission, your card and the Gov will explain the rest.”  
“The Gov?”  
“Head lady, Governor, Momma, whatever you wanna call her.”

We went straight, right, left, straight, right, and came to two double wooden doors. When Quentin opened them for me, I saw they were filled with a 3 inch thick metal skeleton and there was 2 locks, one inside and one out. That wasn’t concerning at all.   
Inside was painted purple unlike the gray/beige mix that the rest of the building was. There was a wall to floor window, which was surprising, and a middle aged woman sitting at a desk in the far corner. The room was bare except for her, a single loveseat opposite and a small decorative table.  
“You, sit there.”  
Her voice rung out like a handheld school bell, brash and stinging. I sat on the blue, velvet couch and squirmed at the odd material. The room smelled like citrus and I wondered how such a room could coexist with such a building. There was no plug sockets in sight yet she had a visibly expensive computer at her feet and three monitors masking her face.   
Quentin spoke as the Governor typed, then Quentin pointed at a screen and she clicked. Then they both spoke, then they both manned the computer. Then they called me. 

I treaded over like a child about to be sent home for wetting himself. I, frankly, didn’t consent to being brought here. I just wanted bandages for my hands now here I was, a new man. Legally, anyways. She spoke,  
“Ryan Haywood?”  
“James Ryan Haywood.”  
“Incorrect, Leland Reeves.”  
Bitch.  
“Leland, is it true you were seeking asylum in 14, Stoves Apartments?”  
I thought for a moment and realised that was my address. Old address. Eviction.   
“Yeah, I got evicted, even though I was in the WPP.”  
She smirked, looked at her cerberus setup and read,  
“Leland has failed to pay rent for 6 months. At 3 months the police were contacted and the eviction was in motion by the fifth month.”  
What? I hadn’t gotten contacted at all. Ever. I didn’t handle the housing situation, the Program did.  
“That’s not fair, all housing letters were sent to you!”

Quentin looked panicked for the first time, breaking their charade of ‘strong protector for the Queen bee’  
My fingertips felt cold and I leant on her desk. My heartbeat sped as she read letter after letter, each one being introduced for the first time to me, each one more demanding than the last. I can’t believe this. Was I just cut from the system? They didn’t pay my rent?   
I mean, sure I went a little mad but I did get my mail. I got the fucking mail they sent me and all they ever sent were $200 checks. One letter a month, you can’t really forget something that easy to remember.  
“Mr. Reeves, If you weren’t relocated to a more secure facility, you would’ve ended up dead.”  
“And, what, that would’ve looked soo bad on your hands?”  
“Yes.”  
I was fuming. I was livid. It wasn’t so much so that they’d relocated me without notice, it was the fact that they couldn’t have notified me personally. They put a fucking sign up, knowing I barely left twice a month. They put a fucking sign up and the Fakes saw it, took it like a lure and gave me another sweet taste of the crew life, but now I’m here.  
I’m fucking here. 

My balled fist went straight to the monitors, the centre one snapped in half and all three toppled. The Governors shriek snapped Quentin out of their daze and they sidestepped the desk, caught their foot, came toppling down onto me.   
I fell to the floor with a grounding thud. Almost on impact, my arms sprung to life and flipped us, them underneath me. And I wailed on them.   
Fists flew like mad, tears almost invisible underneath the small splatters of nasal blood. I couldn’t hear the pleas for me to stop over the overwhelming cries of the Gov and it confused me, so my body went into survival mode. My thoughts weren’t disorganised any longer because all there was was ‘get rid of the threat.’   
There wasn’t much of a struggle left in the body under me when the doors breathed open, like an airlock chamber. That’s all it was, a body, no face. And thats all I was, a body with two spikes in my chest.  
I swore I could see the electricity skidding down the strings, but there was so much more than just a feel to the white hot burn of the taser.  
And down I went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sksk  
> Quentins death has a deeper meaning. Their fate is too much for one of the hunters.


	10. Mind Crowbars, Prying.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It may feel like a cult, but dystopias always do, do they not?

When I woke up, it felt like a really heavy stone gargoyle was sitting on my chest. Partly because there was, kind of. Security guards could be gargoyles.  
I was laid, stomach down, on the floor of the Governors office with my hands behind my back. Handcuffs were forcing my wrists into an awfully uncomfortable hold and a booted foot was on my shoulder blade.   
A wet sort of *pop* noise accompanied the pulling of a tasers barb and I seethed through my teeth. I felt a cold hand wipe away fluids and goosebumps riddled my back. My head was positioned to the right, so I managed to catch sight of the brute on my back and the sobbing Governor, being consoled by a man in a pinstripe.   
“He’s awake, hand me the rag.”  
“What do you mean, rag?”  
Answering my question, a thick rag was rung out beside my head, clear liquid splashing across my face, and my pushed-to-the-ground noggin was muffled by what I could only describe as a damp washcloth smelling like chloroform or cats piss.   
Considering that the world had started swirling inwards like an old timey cartoon ending, I voted the drug. 

Again, when I woke up, there was a sort of weight on my chest; but this time I was stood up, a muzzle and tongue-holder strapped to my face and tied to a dolly. The thick black straps were too tight around my chest and my abdomen simply felt cut off.   
I was in a slim white room with a rounded ceiling, it had an empty, white metal desk to my right and a gurney to the left. The door had a fisheye directly in the upper-centre and I severely doubted that it was for the people locked inside to have a peep out. I tried lifting my head, my hair was thick on my forehead, slick with sweat. One fluorescent bulb was on the ceiling accompanied by a sour brown stain.   
The man in pinstripe approached me from behind. His hand slinked around my shoulder, his undershirt button catching on my neck. I panicked.   
Unable to turn my head, I started jerking against the shoulder restraints. They scuffed my throat and I could see his fingers recoil.   
“Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, calm down!”  
He used his hand to push my sweaty forehead back and sidestepped me correctly, and I almost bit through the tongue-holder when the ruffled curls of Jon Risinger bounced cautiously at me. 

“Ryan! It’s good to see you!”  
I made a happy guttural noise, deep in my throat. It wasn’t totally unlike a sound of relief, and only a bit unlike a pleading whine.   
“Let me get this fucking muzzle off of you, jeez.”  
He, again, sidestepped me and brushed the back of my neck. People love sidestepping in this place, huh. The belt loosened, the metal plate slipping out of my mouth.   
The taste of my own saliva returned to me and pins and needles were onset in my tongue. I would talk, if it weren’t for the silence already being corrupted by Jon’s voice.   
“So, Ryan! I bet you’re wondering why and what you’re doing here, and I’m here to help you get through that confusion!”   
“Wait—Let m-“  
He had moseyed around and jabbed a finger to my lips, scratching my top gums.   
“Ah-ah-ah! I’ll do the talk, you question later.”  
Compelled to argue, I made a show of sighing. He was like a little wind up toy, constantly moving from one place in the room to the other. 

He grabbed a thrice-folded slip of paper from his pressed suit pants pocket and cleared his throat like some sort of rich, snobby asshole. He began to speak.   
“Leland Reeves of the R.E.C Institution is to be instated into the systems inventory. Check! Leland Reeves of the R.E.C Institution is to be assigned a living space with minimal benefits. Check! Leland Reeves of the R.E.C Institution is to be questioned on any matters that will further the Catch And Release program. Unchecked.”  
Jon’s eyes met Ryans once again, a helpful-yet-expectant look plastered over them.   
“What?” Ryan sighed.  
A smile clawed it’s way into Jon’s face and he animatedly leaned his cheek against his fist with an ‘awe’.   
“Poor Ryan, you’re confused! Here, let me narrow it down for you-“  
He began to reread out he list before Ryan stopped him with a wriggle.   
“No, no, just tell me what the R.E.C Institution is and what the fuck the Catch And Release program is.”  
Almost like he didn’t expect it, Jon winced. 

“Of course. The R.E.C Institution stands for Rehabilitation of Ex-Criminals, in fact, it is where you are right now!; well, right now you’re in the isolation unit, that little stunt you pulled in the Gov’s office wasn’t at all appreciated!”  
The memory resurfaced like a bloated corpse in a lake and with it came the hot, sweaty, fetid breath from the corpses gullet.   
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”  
“It’s no matter to me, Rye!”  
The word left his tongue about as shockingly as how a leg might be amputated from a motorcyclist after driving past a street sign, spread eagle.   
The raw fear on his face wiped the corpse breath right out of Ryan’s lungs and drove an ice pick straight down into his being, past his guts and into his soul.   
It was unlike any fear he’d ever seen on a victims face.   
“Leland. Leland Reeves, it’s no matter to me!”  
And was subsequently wiped up as deftly as a mop might erase a spill of juice on linoleum.   
It was noticeable in how Jon’s eyes avoided Ryans.

“And the Catch And Release?”  
Alike it never happened, Jon returned to normal—or whatever his normal was now, being animated and more bouncy than ever.   
“The C.A.R.P program is a military designed strategy to relocate and re-job criminals, such as the Fakes! Let me explain,” he stepped back and pulled the gurney up infront of Ryan, but made no move to strap him into it.  
“So far, the R.E.C Institution has only caught criminals who have either left or been forced out of major criminal organisations, such as yourself-“  
“And Narvaez.”  
Silence. Jon’s eyes were on the gurney and his smile was faltering in his cheeks.  
“And Narvaez, yes,” the words came out dripping with fear. “After the ex criminals have been homed here, in one of the many facilities, we use them to catch their ex crew members!”  
“And the release?”  
He straightened up, not appearing any less distraught.”  
“They’re used as military weapons, to control and organise!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not what you were expecting? Good. Get ready for watching someone allow their entire existence to be shaped into what these people want.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first proper fic!! I’d appreciate kudos and comments, thanks for reading!!!!


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